American investor, businessman and philanthropist Warren Buffett
is the latest in a string of notable figures to concede that the
US economy is now in recession.

Buffett, the largest shareholder and chief executive
officer of Berkshire Hathaway, and the third-richest person in
the world, made
the comments in an interview with cable network CNBC.

"I would say, by any commonsense definition,
we are in a recession," Buffett said.

His comments come on the back of an annual
letter to shareholders (PDF), which he released Friday
along with Berkshire's 2007 financial report, in which he made
similar warnings.

"It's a certainty that insurance-industry profit
margins, including ours, will fall significantly in 2008,"
he said. "Prices are down, and exposures inexorably rise.
Even if the U.S. has its third consecutive catastrophe-light year,
industry profit margins will probably shrink by 4 percentage points
or so.

"If the winds roar or the earth trembles, results could
be far worse."

Buffett is one of the most successful investors
in the history and an economic expert.

He has previously warned of the expanding trade
deficit's slow devaluation of the dollar and other U.S. assets.

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Buffett is not the only notable figure waving the
red flag. A survey
released last week by the National Association for
Business Economics showed that 45 percent of economists are predicting
a recession in 2008.

Indeed, economists everywhere are sounding the alarm and asking
why the Federal Reserve continues to do little or nothing to counter
the rapid downturn as stocks around the world continue
to tumble, inflation
spirals and the dollar
falls to new lows.

"We are becoming increasingly concerned that the authorities
in the world do not get it," said Bernard Connolly, global
strategist at Banque AIG. "The extent of de-leveraging involves
a wholesale destruction of credit. The risk is that the 'shadow
banking system' completely collapses," he said.

"I never thought I would see anything like this in my life,"
said James Steele, an HSBC economist in New York.

"The verdict is in. The Fed's emergency rate
cuts in January have failed to halt the downward spiral towards
a full-blown debt deflation. Much more drastic action will be
needed. As the once unthinkable unfolds, the leaders of global
finance dither. For the first time since this Greek tragedy began,
I am now really frightened." writes Ambrose Evans-Pritchard,
International Business Editor for the London
Telegraph.

Last week the former chief economist of the World
Bank, Joseph
Stiglitz, also said that he believes the US economy
is probably already in recession.

Stiglitz hit out at former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan
stressing that he "is right that this downturn is going to
be the worst downturn in a quarter century, but he's largely to
blame,'' adding "It's not just that he was asleep at the
wheel, he actively looked the other way''.

Meanwhile instead of attempting to work to try and
restore economic prosperity in the US, Greenspan has been urging
Gulf states to abandon
the dollar peg, the system that mandates Gulf nations
to price their assets in U.S. dollars and follow U.S. monetary
policy.

Joseph Stiglitz also took a swipe at current Fed
chairman Ben S. Bernanke, charging him with failing to counter
the deterioration of the real-estate market by procrastinating
over interest rate cuts.

Bernanke has also come under heavy
criticism from Congressman Ron Paul who held the
Fed head to task over his refusal to address the decline of the
dollar and its clear link to inflation.

"Inflation comes from the unwise increase in the supply
of money credit....to argue that we can continue to debase the
currency, which is really the policy of that you're following,
purposely debasing value of currency - which to me seems so destructive....it
just puts more pressure on the federal reserve to create capital
out of thin air in order to stimulate the economy and usually
that just goes into mal-investment," said Paul.